| JGarret said: Very good post by Resident....Resident, since you seem to have a lot of knowledge about the industry, where do you see the 8th generation going? I know there´s no way right now for you to know, but putting together your wild guess, assumptions and history, what would you say?...do you see anyone leaving or entering the industry?. |
Well, seeing as how I was with the rest of the industry in being totally surprised at what Nintendo actually unveiled with the Wii and Wiimote, it's truly hard to say.
My prediction model for consoles goes in dual-generation spurts in this pattern: Innovation generation, followed by "perfectioin" generation. In essence, one generation introduces new ideas and concepts and the following improves and, in a sense, gets out all the kinks from the previous generation. Odd-numbered generations are the innovators. My original prediction, a couple years ago, was that this generation required innovation for the industry to maintain momentum (and not fall victim to a crash or recession). Nintendo, thankfully, maintained my prediction model--as they tend to do.
Skipping the first two generations, the model starts in earnest with the 3rd generation--the NES/Master System era (in some cases, the TurboGrafx-16 is here). In this generation, there was innovation. The creation of the digital directional pad (the d-pad), and a flat hand-held controller with labeled buttons (rather than a button on the stick and one on the base like the Atari2600--neither of which were labeled). This generation also introduced, through Nintendo, the very important concept of industry control by console makers in the way of 3rd party companies requiring a license to develop games for systems--and a system lock-out to prevent the kind of rampant piracy leading to the crash of '83. The following generation, with the SNES and Genesis/Mega Drive hardly offered many innovations. In reality, it was simply the refinement of the formula created by the NES.
The fifth generation, the 32/64-bit years, brought new innovation again. 3-D polygonal gaming became the norm, rumble features were introduced in controllers, in-game camera control was born, disk-based games took off, the memory card was birthed and analog control was introduced. The last generation, with the Xbox, PS2, Dreamcast, and GC offered a refinement of the formula created by the N64, PSX, and Saturn. The only "new" thing brought about was online gaming, which really had it's infancy (for consoles) way back with the SNES and Genesis with the X-Band modems.
The only predictions I've come up with for the next generation are:
Harddrives will be standard.
Wi-Fi will be standard.
Wireless controllers will be standard, likely with built-in rechargable batteries and rumble.
There will be no $600 machines.
Disk-based games will still be the primary medium.
I do not believe Blu-Ray will become the industry standard (Sony themselves have used a different format for all four of their systems). Currently, Nintendo uses a proprietary disk that is essentially a rip-off of DVD so they don't have to pay to use actual DVD's. I think they'll do the same. With MGS4 apparently maxing the Blu-Ray medium (already), I think all companies will be looking for something better. My personal vision is that laser-readable disks will soon be on the out and replaced by extremely durable Harddrive-style disks which, like old game cartridges, would offer faster loading and reading, and near limitless available storage space. But that's just me. I mean, just how much bigger can laser-read disk media get? They're going to reach a point where the disk can only be spun and read so fast before it's just not enough.
I also believe this generation will last longer than the previous one for a variety of reasons: For one, with development costs so high on the Xbox360 and PS3, 3rd party companies (and Sony and MS themselves) may be reluctant to suddenly jump to a new generation so quickly. Microsoft foolishly shortened the lifespan of the Xbox to 4 years and if they do that with the X360, they'll end up becoming the new Sega--too much hardware released too close together. Even now, secrets are being unlocked in the PS2 with games like Star Wars TFU. The original Xbox and GC were killed off before all their secrets and abilities had been discovered and used. This indicates that there is still a vast wealth of power and tricks available to be discovered in the new systems, even the relatively weak DS and Wii.
Another major reason I think this generation will last is because of the monkey wrench Nintendo threw into the industry. They have two systems that are offering abilities wildly different than before. It caught the industry off-guard. It definitly caught Sony and Microsoft off-guard. Everyone will be re-evaluating what they had planned for the next iteration. You can almost see the MS and Sony executives going into the design room saying "throw out all this stuff [in reference to design specs for Xbox1080 and Playstation 4], throw it all away. We need to seriously rethink this whole thing."
I wouldn't be surprised to see some kind of motion-based control or peripherals offered by every console maker next time, but if I had to make a prediction, I'd say Microsoft is the most likely to retain the classic controller scheme in an effort to appeal more to hardcore gamers. I know, it's a tough call since Sony has basically used the exact same controller for three generations, but they showed a willingness to rip-off motion controls early on with the PS3--they just didn't implement it well since it was essentially the same technology found in old Game Boy games like Kirby's Tilt 'n' Tumble. And while Nintendo no doubt sent the other guys scrambling back to the drawing board, they, no doubt, are already cooking up somthing else. They may actually break the Console Generations Model I've constructed. They may innovate yet again simply to set themselves on a new course the next time. Nintendo used to be the company who went after the "bigger, more powerful" philosophy--especially when Yamauchi was still in command. The SNES, N64, and GC all came into being based on this idea. True, the GC was weaker than the Xbox, but I think Nintendo was more focused on one-upping Sega and Sony at the time and didn't even consider Microsoft. With that in mind, where power is concerned, they truly one-upped Sega and Sony in raw processing power.
I could be wrong on this, but I was one of the first people who speculated on EA making a console. I watched them haggle back and forth with Take Two and was instantly reminded of Sony and Microsoft's entrances to the console industry--they both came in buying up other companies to create a powerful in-house team of developers. EA has tons of money, only Activision-Blizzard may have more (where third party publishers are concerned), and it's executives from EA who've been touting the horn of "one unified console" for quite a while.
On top of which, Apple has released very Wiimote-like patents which beg the question, why? Obviously, it's now too late for Apple to jump into the industry for this generation. They'd have little to no support and the industry is already dominated by the other three. Even if their machine offered the power than many Wii owners want, it certainly wouldn't offer the games or franchises.
So, for the 8th generation, I wouldn't be surprised at all if Apple or EA came into the fold and wanted a piece of the action. If I had to guess, I'd say Apple is more likely simply because they do have that patent floating around out there.
Despite the fact that Nintendo is now touting the "less is more" ideal where raw system power is concerned, I believe their next two systems will offer a substantial improvement where CPU horsepower is concerned. The next system will be more powerful than the Xbox360 by a decent margin, but still economic and weaker than the competition. Perhaps once again being built on a super-charged GC/Wii framework.
With Kuturagi gone, I think Sony will no longer design Playstations around a super-powerful core processor like the Cell or Emotion Engine. Developers have been noted as saying both the PS2 and PS3 offer high learning curves--of which they are not too fond.
Also, Microsoft is basically on the same course now that they were with the Xbox, and that was not their original plan for getting into console gameing. They wanted the Xbox to be their "foot in the door," and imagined that they would be the market leaderst this time around. If PS3 sales continue to improve and X360 sales continue to drop, MS could find themselves in last place this time around--the exact opposite of where they wanted to be 6 years ago. If Apple and/or EA spring into the industry, someone else will be heading out.
Apple: If they come in, it's a 40-60 that they will survive (60 on the side of failure). They have ease of use, popularity, and reliability on their side. People love the company whereas most people grudgingly accept Microsoft. While they have creative technologies, making a Wii-like system next generation may just make them look dated, and as of now, they have nothing in the way a major games division. MS had already meddled around with gaming before on their PC's. Macs have never been known for gaming.
EA: If EA comes in and yanks all that they own to make them exclusive to their own system, this spells doom for MS and/or Sony as EA owns a lot, and Microsoft and Sony are more dependant on third party wares (like EA) than Nintendo is. There are more studios under EA's control than Nintendo's, believe it or not. They'd have something necessary for a start-up console--they'd have games, and lots of them. But, their vision is of a monolopizing single super-console and that simply won't work with the gaming industry. Nintendo will never fold, and these days, Nintendo look like the good guys while EA looks like the bad guys. Nintendo would be the single biggest obstacle to EA making a unified console. And there's the Japanese companies to consider as well. Companies like Sega, Capcom, Sqare-Enix, and Konami would likely rather be under Nintendo's umbrella than EA's. Sega and Capcom especially since they've had long histories with Nintendo and the companies meld well together. A console from EA could seriously damage Microsoft and Sony, but would likely never topple Nintendo. Especially since Nintendo likes having control over those machines. These days they'd be highly unwilling to ever put Mario on a console not made by them. If EA made a console, I'd say a 60-40 chance, with 40 on the side of failure. Activision-Blizzard, being another massive American company, may end up siding with EA if they were to put out their targeted "unified" machine, and if that happened, that would be disastrous for MS and Sony.
If Apple and EA came into the mix, here's how I see it, with most likely to remain console makers to the 9th generation, to most likely to stop making consoles by then (most likely to succeed to most likely to fail, essentially) :
Nintendo
Sony
EA/Microsoft
Apple
Nintendo will have little problem staying in the race. But if EA comes in, it could be hardest on MS who, for all intents and purproses, face the very real possibility of finishing this generation in third--and they're the most dependant on third party support from American companies. If Apple comes in, it's most likely that they'll be the company booted out by the 9th generation. Even if they do succeed in making a new, more powerful Wii, Nintendo will already be another 5 steps ahead of them next time, and they'll have what Apple doesn't: Well established franchises. Without Mario, Link, Samus, and company, Nintendo would've had a much harder time convincing gamers to pick up the Wii and DS.
Sorry for the length, but there's a lot to consider about this stuff.
